Quick Facts
Biography
Michel Pêcheux (1938–1983) was a French philosopher. In the 1960s, Pêcheux became involved with the journal Cahiers pour l'Analyse, where he began developing his own unique model of 'discourse analysis'. In all of his contributions to the Cahiers, Pêcheux used the pseudonym Thomas Herbert.
He is the father of the French branch of discourse analysis, developed with concepts from historical materialism, linguistics and psychoanalysis, inspired by Louis Althusser, Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Lacan.
Select bibliography
- Analyse automatique du discours (1969)
- Les vérités de la Palice (1975)
- La langue introuvable (1981) with Françoise Gadet
- "Discourse: Structure or Event?", trans. Warren Montag, with Marie-Germaine Pêcheux and Denise Guback. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 633–650.
- "Ideology: Fortress or Paradoxical Space?". In Rethinking Ideology: A Marxist Debate, eds. Sakari Hanninen and Leena Paldan. New York: International General/IMMRC, 1983.
Discourse Analysis in Brazil
Pêcheux's Discourse Analysis had an inpact in Brazil since his oeuvres were translated into Portuguese by Eni Orlandi, who continued his work and advanced the theory in Brazil. The subject is part of the Letters and Social Communication program at some federal universities, such as Fluminense Federal University.